Tender new spring lamb from coastal Rangitikei/Wanganui/South Taranaki farms went on sale in New World supermarkets over the lower North Island this week.
Coastal Spring Lamb is the brainchild of Turakina farmer Richard Redmayne. It was launched on Monday and Mr Redmayne and his wife Suze will be visiting supermarkets and conducting tastings.
"It's pretty exciting. It's probably the highlight of my farming career to see our own product in a supermarket and watch people buying it," he said.
He has registered the Coastal Spring Lamb brand to a company named after the family farm - Tunnel Hill Ltd.
For years the Redmaynes have been lambing in June and July and then sending meat north to be Christmas dinner in Britain and Europe. This year it's staying close to home.
Mr Redmayne came up with the idea of marketing spring lamb as a seasonal New Zealand delicacy after listening to Foodstuffs marketer Alistair Scott at a Massey University field day. He talked to Mr Scott, who liked the idea.
After a successful pilot last year Mr Redmayne has enlisted three other farms to help him supply 1000 lambs a week to Affco's Land Meat plant in Wanganui for processing.
The meat is broken down into middles, legs and shoulders, packed in cartons and taken to Palmerston North for distribution to 50 supermarkets from Waitara across to Wairoa and south to Wellington.
Coastal Spring Lamb is exclusive to New World supermarkets. An Auckland company has done the branding, and Foodstuffs has produced sales material. All the cuts are labelled, with brochures of recipes available. The lambs are cross breeds from the Redmaynes' Tunnel Hill farm, Tim O'Neill's Maewa Station in the Turakina Valley, the McKelvie farm at Tangimoana and the Brewer farm near Hawera.
Mr O'Neill said lambing had always been done early on his farm, and he shared his neighbour's enthusiasm for the new venture. "We are doing the same thing but we are doing it better. We're just making sure everything is perfect, because it's all going local. We have our phone number on the back of the packaging and we can find out exactly whose table it ends up at."
The four farms are all near the coast where conditions are warm enough for lambing from mid June to mid July.
The lambs are weighed weekly and separated into paddocks of the same weight. Those closest to being killed get the best pasture.
Winter and spring rains meant the grass, clovers and herbs of coastal pasture were at their best before Christmas.
"Pasture grown at this time of the year has the highest nutritional value and the lambs are grown very quickly and we feel that's part of what makes them so succulent and tender," Mr Redmayne said.
Spring is also when westerly winds power in against the lower North Island west coast. Sales material says the lamb is "naturally seasoned by the sea".
The Redmaynes, O'Neills and McKelvies are to provide 300 lambs each a week for 12 weeks, finishing at the end of January, with the Brewers providing the remaining 100. The geographical spread of the farms should ensure they can always meet their target of 1000 animals a week.
All four farms have some heritage, Mr Redmayne said. In the case of Tunnel Hill, his great grandfather bought it in 1936 and he took it over in 1993 at the age of 26 - after getting a degree in economics at Otago University and doing tax and accounting work in London.